Sesame bagels

I've been making a lot of focaccia recently, so I decided it was time to add some new recipes to my bread baking repetoire. First up was bagels. I thought that it would be a pain to boil and then bake the bagels, but it actually wasn't too bad. Peter Reinhart's recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice is pretty straightforward. First, you make the sponge which sits for about two hours to expand and get bubbly. Then, you add the rest of the ingredients (bread or high gluten flour, salt, and barley malt powder or syrup). Afterwards, you make 4.5 ounce rounds out of the dough, shape them like bagels, and then they go in the fridge overnight. In the morning, the bagels go directly from the fridge into the boiling water. I used a large deep skillet, so I was able to boil 4 bagels at a time. The bagels are baked in a very hot oven for about 10-15 minutes. They are definitely an improvement over store bought - the outsides are crispy and the insides are soft and tender. My only complaint is that the sesame seeds didn't stick that well. The recipe says to top the bagels with seeds immediately after they come out of the water, which I did, but next time I think I'll use an egg wash.

Poor man's brioche

This recipe is from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. The book provides three recipes for brioche; rich man, middle class, and poor man. The difference between the recipes is the amount of butter used. Rich man uses 4 sticks of butter for 2 loaves, while poor man uses a more reasonable amount of 1 stick of butter. I thought the poor man's brioche was rich enough with the single stick of butter - the crumb was very light and flaky. This bread would make a great french toast or bread pudding. I was happy simply eating it with strawberry jam.

Springtime dinner

My grandmother is in town from Los Angeles - she doesn't get to sample my cooking very often, so I put together a meal for her that showcases some of spring's best ingredients.

For an appetizer, we started with savory coeur a la creme (Martha Stewart Living) with lavash crackers (Bread Baker's Apprentice).

The main course was butterfish with a puree of celery root and ramps, served with sauteed morels and fiddleheads. The garnish was flowering chives.

Dessert was baked alaska with chocolate cake (Gale Gand), banana ice cream (Alton Brown), brown sugar meringue (Mustards Napa Valley cookbook) and chocolate sauce (Everyday Food).

There are two extra baked alaskas in the freezer - I wonder if they'll still be there in the morning!

Bread Baker's Apprentice - Pain de campagne

This recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice is noted as a good dough for making different shapes with. I haven't had a lot of practice with shaping dough, so I gave it a try. The dough is comprised of a large amount of pate fermentee, and has a small amount of whole wheat flour for color and flavor. I ended up making two loaves, each weighed a little over a pound:

tresse

fougasse

Bread Baker's Apprentice - hamburger buns

I made hamburger buns using the white bread recipe (variation 2) from Bread Baker's Apprentice

I used buttermilk as Peter Reinhart suggests. I buy buttermilk for baking and usually end up with a few cups left over. This is a great way to use it up.

The recipe yields a very soft dough - I ended up with 11 buns that each weighed a little over 3 ounces. Some were topped with sesame seeds, others with poppy seeds, and I left a few plain. The texture of the bread is airy with a light crumb.

More focaccia from the Bread Baker's Apprentice

I made more focaccia over the weekend from the Bread Baker's Apprentice

I used the Pain a l'Ancienne technique again, but this time with a few changes. Instead of baking the bread in a half sheet pan, I used a 9 x 13 pan to get a thicker bread for sandwiches. I also added 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary to the dough.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice - Focaccia (Pain a l'Ancienne method)

I wanted to make some focaccia, but I didn't like the idea of using nearly a cup of olive oil in the standard Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe. So I decided to use the Pain a l'Ancienne technique which creates a rustic dough that develops its flavor over a long fermentation period.

I also decided to use a basil infused olive oil to top the focaccia rather than the herb oil recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice because I didn't want chopped herbs on top of the bread. I didn't think it would freeze well that way.

I had great success - the focaccia had an extremely light texture and good flavor. The rustic Pain a l'Ancienne dough is very sticky and therefore hard to handle, but definitely worth it! In the end, I only used about 1/4 cup of olive oil, a large calorie savings.

Dough before the final rise

Slab of focaccia

Cut into triangles

Pane Siciliano - Day 3

When I pulled the dough out of the fridge this morning, it had risen enough to be baked. I baked the loaves at 450 degrees on a pizza stone and added a pot of boiling water to the bottom rack to create steam which develops a nice crust. Here's the finished product.

Pane Siciliano - Day 2

Today I used the pate fermentee I made last night to create the dough for my bread. I cut up the pate fermentee into small pieces and combined it with bread flour, semolina flour, olive oil, salt, honey and instant yeast. I kneaded it for about 10 minutes and let it rise for 2 hours. Then I shaped the loaves. This is what they look like:

They went into the fridge for the night and will be ready to bake tomorrow.

Pane Siciliano - Day 1

Pane Siciliano is a semolina flour and sesame seed bread. The first step in the process is to make the pate fermentee, also known as a pre-ferment. A pre-ferment's main purpose is to improve the flavor and structure of the bread.

I combined 5 ounces of all purpose flour, 5 ounces of bread flour, 3/4 teaspoon grey sea salt and 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast with about 1 cup of water. I kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes and left it at room temperature for a little over an hour to ferment.

Now it's in the fridge for the night and will be combined with the rest of the bread ingredients tomorrow.